Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
Maybe you guys should take this to PM's, the thread is not the place for it.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
- Pronouns
- She/They
…are you referring to Sundancer?
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
As the Traveler's are mentioned in the rest of the sentence, one would assume so.
Yeah, my mistake. It might just because I remember a fic where she went under the name Mars but now I can't remember which one. But fixed.
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
Her names Marissa, Mars for short.
That and I remember now which fic it was. It was Atonement!
Dancingrage
On a crash course with the big time.
- Location
- On The Road, USA
66 Review and Preparation
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
(Author's Note: This is something of a bridging chapter as we get back into the swing of things. Shorter than I would have liked, and confined to the Workshop. We'll be pushing out into the city in the next chapter)
66 Review and Preparation
Within the virtual realm of my computer core Aisha mimed a yawn. She wasn't tired, not in here, and the natural yawn reflex didn't exist when separated from your body, so it was clearly a deliberate act. Tetra and Tybalt followed suit, but probably without the same motivation. Tybalt hardly needed an excuse to yawn and had already proven it was possible to nap inside a virtual environment, with his head returning to the desk immediately afterwards. Tetra seemed to be doing it for the novelty of the experience.
For Aisha, it was a commentary on the material being covered. Not a particularly malicious one, but it was the closest to being bored Aisha had come in any of the lessons I'd given, though that was probably more to do with the course material than the way I was presenting it.
"So, is that it?" She asked. "I don't actually need to take the test, right?" Tetra perked up at that. Between her perfect memory and information processing abilities she had taken to academia better than I had ever expected. Aisha was a lot more open to education, or at least the type of education I could provide, but she had a lifetime of academic frustration that she was still dealing with. For Tetra it was still a novel and exciting experience.
I shook my head as I reordered the learning environment, clearing away the subject materials. "We could run through a practice exam, but I can't actually give you the accreditation. And I think you all have this down. Especially the math and science portions."
"No shit." She said, stretching in her seat before turning back to me. "I mean I appreciate the effort, but that is some seriously basic stuff. And the rest of it…" She trailed off.
"I get that there are more interesting and useful things we could be covering, but what's passed for your education in here has been very lopsided." I said to her, then turned to Tetra and Tybalt. Mostly Tetra as Tybalt had shifted to covering his eyes with his paws. "And it was good to get a wider perspective for the two of you as well. Working through the GED program was a solid way to round it out." I explained.
It wasn't exactly a high school education, more of a truncated blitz through four subjects to verify a grounding in secondary schooling. I could still teach supernaturally well, but when compared to what we could be covering, Aisha was understandably impatient.
"Yeah, all that and I don't even get a diploma for it." She said, then glanced down at her notes. The mere fact that I had gotten her to start taking notes and continue into non-technical subjects seemed like a major accomplishment, but really, tailoring the note-taking method to the person rather than trying to enforce universal standards turned it into something she actually seemed to enjoy.
"I liked learning about it." Said Tetra. Her virtual form has evolved from the mess of fibers she'd originally held to a more human version of her Zoanthrope form. "All the information is online and in the Workshop computer, but it was nice seeing it in class."
I nodded and wondered how much of that was the chance to interact with people rather than reading on her own and how much was the effect of my teaching power.
"Honestly, I was expecting it to be worse than this." Aisha said. "I mean, it makes sense that the technical stuff wouldn't be like what we've been covering, but the rest of the stuff is seriously just about reading good and knowing why the country is so fucked up?"
The modules on Reasoning Through Language Arts and Social Studies had kind of dragged on, leaving Aisha's natural sarcasm to leak through, though at least she hadn't slept through most of it like Tybalt. A thorough breakdown of the governmental system had presented no shortage of opportunities for pointing out everything she considered to be an obvious problem. I didn't really disagree with most of her points, but debating the effectiveness of federal power structures was a bit outside the scope of the course.
"It's high school equivalency, not a complete high school program. You cover a lot more than this in actual school." I said.
"Yeah…" Aisha murmured. "I guess I can worry about that later."
I nodded once and didn't press the subject. The question of what Aisha would do when she went back to school, if she went back to school. Even setting aside the current level of her technical knowledge, it was going to be hard for her to fit in or pass off her level of understanding as anything conventional. The GED review had partially been intended to make the situation a little less outlandish, but it was clear that was mostly a lost cause.
I hadn't asked about Aisha's current academic situation. At her age she would have been starting 9th grade in the fall, assuming she had kept up with her classes. There was a chance she had or was going to repeat a grade, though that was obviously not as likely anymore. That meant Aisha had the problem of how to deal with high school.
I hadn't intended to cause that problem, and honestly I doubted she would have held back from her chance to learn advanced science and alchemy for the sake of fitting in more easily. Frankly, at this point, considering something five months in the future seemed pointless. Maybe get through the week without another disaster and we could start making medium term plans again.
"We should disconnect." I said to them, "The duplicates have a round of upgrades scheduled."
"Another one?" Aisha asked. "How come it's taking so long to change things over to the magic computer?"
"Photonic crystals." I clarified. "The computer's already magic. This is just kind of extra magic." That still undersold things, but we weren't quite at the level of covering spiritron computing. "The tech draws from Web of Magic principles, but doesn't really show up in any detail. I've had to develop most of it from the ground up."
"Seriously?" She asked.
I shrugged. "The philosopher stones match up to what was shown in the series, but they were never used like this." And were completely distinct from every other type of philosopher stone I knew about. I had about a half dozen different examples and they all functioned differently. "The only thing close to that was from a cell phone game from Hong Kong about heroic spirits fighting inside a computer on the moon." Aisha gave me a skeptical look. "Hey, I didn't write it."
"Right. So, what was the deal in that moon war thing?" She asked. Tybalt was still at least half-asleep, but his ears twitched at the word 'war'.
"There were three separate narratives for the game depending on the regional version." Tetra explained from her perfect recall of the information. "Explanations ranged from computer simulations conducted on a magicless Earth to cross-universal connections to an organization trying to prevent the apocalypse using time travel."
Yeah, there was a good reason most people's knowledge of Web of Magic was basically limited to 'sword beams go pew pew'.
"Is that game something we should look into?" Aisha asked, the paused. "Or has Survey already taken care of that?"
I shook my head. "It was shut down in late 2009. The monetization methods violated gambling legislation in a lot of its key markets. It was also suspected as being a vector for malware that fed information back to the C.U.I.. Fox pulled the license shortly after. The developer tried to rebrand the game, but it pretty much dried up and it's not clear how much guidance they actually got from Kinoko Nasu or the U.S. team in the first place."
Survey had provided an extensive breakdown on the game and all information surrounding it. There wasn't much to go on, besides the fact that this kind of computing was technically possible, but I already knew that. Frankly, with the amount of drift and inaccuracy, trying to use any fictional work as a guide for my powers was a risky proposition. Older properties seemed to have more stable matches, but even then it wasn't something I wanted to gamble on.
Aisha stood up from her desk and Tetra followed suit. Tybalt yawned again and stretched, clearly relishing the joy of sleeping through class. Eventually he shifted enough to raise his head, blinked at the room, then slid out to join the other two.
"Are we going to get back to the Armsmaster stuff after this break?" Aisha asked. "You know, stuff that will actually help with the coming situation?"
I shook my head in good humor. "Not having an education so lopsided that you're basically advertising a cape power will help with the coming situation, or at least my peace of mind for it." I replied. "But yes, we'll cover more 'Armsmaster Stuff', but there's more that we need to deal with, and we can't do all of it inside the computer."
"Shame." Aisha said. "I still can't believe you can just teach tinker tech." She looked momentarily distant. "Or that I can learn it."
I shrugged and replied before she could get too introspective. "The version of the power I got is a lot less restrained that what most tinkers deal with. Most of the other work is based on principles that you can't hope to recreate without the power doing the heavy lifting. They couldn't explain their tech if they wanted to."
Really, it was a miracle that I was able to teach as much as I had. To say the technology was complex would be underselling it by a ludicrous degree. Even without the near supernatural skill with energy efficiency and miniaturization, it was a tech base that dwarfed any other I had encountered, in breadth if not sophistication.
It was the breadth of the information that actually made teaching it somewhat practical. I had other archives of science and technology to draw upon, but those existed within their own spheres. Each had an assumption of understanding of certain principles and access to certain facilities and materials. Teaching someone the science of Star Trek wouldn't be much use if every practical application needed tools and components that were four centuries away from what could be found on Earth. I had run headlong into the same problem with Master Builder. The scientific principles had their use, but most of the technology was impossible to recreate without energon and cybertonium.
With my tinker power I didn't have that problem, mostly because it was a tinker power. The principles behind even 'simple' projects were still advanced, but the practical applications could always be scaled down to a usable level. It was the famous 'scrap tinkering' phase of building up, where you're stretching your power to work with things that barely fit your needs. What you ended up with was crap compared to more refined projects, but it was functional crap, and that made a difference.
It went back to the difference between knowledge and application. I could teach scientific principles incredibly well, but turning that into something usable was more of a challenge. My tinker power wasn't just knowledge, it was application and engineering. With that power, and without the limits that usually restrained it, I could teach people how to make tinker tech.
Well, at least to a limited degree. In reality there was too much to cover, even with the teaching powers and accelerated cognition. I had been able to manage introductory points, but the prospect of imparting my full knowledge base was just not practical. Even the work of multiple runs of duplicates hadn't been able to get a fraction of the full database transferred into the Workshop's records. That was the reason Tetra was learning in the virtual environment rather than just directly accessing workshop records. That, and I think she really did enjoy being in class.
Luckily, something about the power naturally and seamlessly integrated with my other knowledge bases. The original plan of introducing more advanced scientific concepts had morphed into the teaching of tinker principles. Anything I taught could now have at least a few technical applications baked into it.
I'd kept things fairly broad during the initial lessons, mostly trying to get a sense of what, if anything, to focus on. Unsurprisingly, Tybalt had a natural affinity with weapon design. Athena was regarded as more of a patron of military design than Ares, but he was clearly no slouch in that department. Even when I wasn't presenting the technology in an offensive light Tybalt had been able to gravitate towards its offensive potential.
Tetra was more general, taking in information like a sponge and committing every design to memory. Most of her questions were about emulation of various advanced properties using life fibers. While she couldn't recreate every exotic material I had access to, she could manage tinker tech just fine. The types of technology she could generate directly was staggering.
Aisha had been less certain through the initial lessons, but found confidence as they went on. A lot of her interest was in the technology she had already used or seen, things integrated into her suit or her watch. Also, the possibility of creating tinker tech using alchemical transmutations. It was something that was probably beyond her current skill level, but had definite potential. With my construction speed powers and the requirement to build by hand for Master Craftsman to activate I hadn't bothered with Alchemy for that kind of work, but the idea clearly appealed to Aisha. Certainly, more than needing a dedicated workspace and hundreds of precision tools and components.
Shifting from courses on advanced micro electronics, integrated circuits, control systems, high energy physics, and aerospace engineering to a high school equivalency program was probably pretty jarring. It's easy to see why Aisha had trouble focusing and Tybalt slept through most of it. Still, I think he enjoyed the chance to sleep in class more than any part of the actual lessons, regardless of the topic.
With the lessons, there was the question of 'need'. I could spend a hundred years teaching everything I knew and it still wouldn't be enough for someone to recreate even my most casual efforts. I had too many powers that were specific to my own work, something the Matrix was keen to focus on. Greater technical proficiency from the members of the team who didn't have literal computer brains was useful, but there were other areas that needed to be focused on.
"We'll get back to this, but there's a lot more we need to cover." I said. "To start with, I promised to show you that place."
Her eyes lit up. "That place you've been keeping sealed off since I first showed up? I finally get to go into the mystery room?"
"Yes." I replied. "It's called the Laboratorium."
I could see the excitement wither and die in Aisha's expression. "What, seriously?"
"What were you expecting?" I asked.
"I don't know." She said. "Maybe the Secret Murder Vault of Doom and Mystery?"
Tybalt gave her a considerate look, then meowed. Aisha's eyes widened as I nodded and replied. "Yeah, that probably would be a better fit for the place."
"Wait, wait, wait. I was joking there. Seriously, 'murder' works? Seriously?" She asked in an increasingly frantic voice.
"Well, they aren't really dead." I said. "Technically speaking. Very technically speaking."
"Uh, are you really sure about this?" Aisha asked nervously.
"It'll be fine." Tetra said, leading Aisha towards the exit door. "Come on, I can show you my room."
"You're room's in there?" Aisha stuttered.
Tetra nodded. "Really, it's a converted containment field where I used to be stored, but it's gotten a lot nicer now that they don't want to kill me anymore."
Aisha fell into a stunned silence as we exited from the virtual environment. Unlike earlier peaceful disconnects from the system, this came was a wave of vertigo, a set of jumbled thoughts, and a few seconds where I needed to figure out how my body worked. I gritted my teeth and rode out the sensations in silence, something that Aisha was far less inclined to do.
"God damn motherfucking hell-fuck." The string of profanity coming from Aisha's interface echoed around the Workshop. The disorientation from the disconnect at least seemed to have temporarily suspended her concerns about the upcoming tour.
"You alright?" I called down to her.
"Fuck no. I can feel that in my teeth." She growled. "This is what you call a fucking upgrade?"
"Hey, cognitive acceleration is three times faster than before." One of my duplicates called out from somewhere nearby. "And we can probably double that after the next set of upgrades."
"Great, just fucking great." Aisha groused as she climbed out of her interface throne and moved down to the workshop proper. "So, it's going to be twice as bad, isn't it?"
"Your soul's catching up to your body. It's going to be a bit disorienting." He said as Tetra and Tybalt joined him.
"That's not 'a bit disorienting', that's a fucking near death experience." She grumbled. "You know, if I didn't have to live through it every time you wanted to hook up another RAM expansion I'd have a hard time believing you were actually messing with souls." She rubbed her arms. "Not anymore."
From the Dragon's Pulse I could tell it was mostly theatrics on Aisha's part. Complaining about the disconnect experience had practically become a tradition at this point, particularly after she wasn't warned about it the first time. To be fair, they hadn't warned me either, but Aisha didn't count that as a mitigating factor.
The effect was due to a principle that was only possible as spiritron technology was integrated into the system. There had been a spiritual element to the system from the time I had been connected while recovering from my fight with Lung, but the effect was regulated. Magitech systems could bring you into the virtual world to a greater degree than any form of neural interface, but it still maintained synchronization with your body, which meant there was a hard limit to how fast the processing could be accelerated. Neurons could only fire so quickly and information could only be processed so fast before you ran into hard limits. Even brushing up against those limits could cause massive damage to your brain.
It was why, barring an initial level of refinement, the level of my cognitive acceleration had been effectively stagnant while the rest of my technology advanced massively. Even as the computer core reached new levels of advancement, being imbued with enchantments, divine aspects, and the most advanced technology imaginable, the mental processing speed was fixed. Until a solution had been found. If the problem was the connection between the mind and the brain you just needed to break that connection.
That sounded a lot worse than it actually is. Getting into the dynamics of souls and spiritual elements it became clear that the mind and the brain are not precisely the same thing. Your brain could only think so quickly. It was limited by chemical processes and its own structural limitations. Your mind, particularly when connected with a divine computer, was far less limited.
The secret to breaking the cognitive acceleration ceiling was to separate the mind from the body, effectively allowing the soul to extend into the system and think, feel, and learn independent of the brain. Of course, when you returned to your body it meant that you were basically running a system update instead of just coming out of sleep mode.
The effect was substantially more jarring, but the benefits were worth it. Even with all her complaining, Aisha knew that. The full content of the GED course, something that normally takes months of studying, had been completed in about ten minutes, and that included the lengthy tirades about government structure. Aisha might grouse, but she knew the benefit of being able to process faster.
Tybalt looked up at her and meowed. She looked down with a wry grin. "Of course, YOU can handle it. But some of us aren't demigod superhumans."
"Not yet." I said and Tetra bounded up to cling to my shoulder. Aisha looked at me in surprise. "We still need to talk about enhancements. Tybalt can probably handle Aura for everyone, but there are other options, and some of them are pretty serious. If you're going to be in the field, dealing with the mess out there, I want to make sure you're ready."
"Right." Aisha said, and I could practically see the weight of the situation on her. "We need to deal with that superpower catalog thing." She paused, then shook her head. "God damn, I never thought I'd see a situation where someone was offering me a combo platter of powers as anything but a celebration."
I nodded in understanding. "This stuff always looks a lot better from the outside. Now, come on, I'll show you the Laboratorium."
The signs of apprehension that had been temporarily suspended came flooding back to Aisha. It was only Tetra's excitement at the prospect that seemed to be buoying her along, even if the excited rants needed to be relayed through infrared links. Survey was able to facilitate that as we walked, as well as maintaining a completely separate conversation with Tetra. Meanwhile Tetra was talking with Aisha and Survey, checking in with the Matrix and Fleet, and accessing recent updates to workshop systems and technical designs.
The way Tetra could split her focus like that drove home the fact that I wasn't dealing with a conventional lifeform. Really, there was nothing even remotely conventional about Life Fibers, but Tetra had built up her awareness through observation and mimicry of myself, Survey, and Fleet. It was debatable if a mass of life fibers would have developed those modes of thought without the exposure to mental landscapes that Tetra had encountered from my connection to the computer core.
Still, with the variability and evolutionary potential intrinsic to life fibers it was kind of pointless to question whether any specific development was supposed to happen. The point was, even though she had developed in a very human way, she was something more than that. Several things more than that, thanks to that imperfect fission.
My thoughts were cycling back to what I had promised her. Kamui. It was a big step, and not one I was going to take lightly. It was what Tetra wanted, but it almost seemed like a step back for her. Only from her perspective the inability to directly interface was the step back. The direction she wanted to develop in, both from her instincts and her own desire, wasn't one I would consider positive from a human perspective.
When Fleet, Survey, and the Matrix had exhibited inhuman thought patterns, manners of thinking and ways of looking at the world that no living person would be able to consider I had been able to fall back on my own experience as… well, as what was probably something like a Transformer. The point was I had a connection to them that I lacked when it came to Tetra. Not for lack of trying, just because her nature was unique and distinct from that of anyone else in the Forge. It made it hard to be confident I was doing the right thing when it came to her.
It was a surprisingly normal problem, applied to a very abnormal situation. The best I could do was try to understand the situation and make sure I was supporting Tetra in what she needed. Assuming that wasn't to spread across the surface of the earth, consume or mind control every human, and then propagate through the cosmos in a cycle of parasitic evolution. All things considered; we were probably safe on that front.
I shifted my awareness towards Survey's actions. There was an interesting interplay between her humanoid form and the main program that continued to develop on the computer core. Survey had never had the detached relationship with her copies that Fleet had enjoyed. They were always more extensions of herself than independent beings. Having a second iteration that was unquestionably 'herself' was something that it appeared she was still adjusting to.
The Survey that existed within her constructed body was no less Survey than the version that was housed within the upgraded computer core. In fact, the problem wasn't that the versions were in conflict. It was that they were expecting to be in conflict, but constantly finding themselves on the same page, so to speak. They were constantly sending updates, confirmations, and reports to each other, most of which the other copy had either already deduced or was at most a few steps away from confirming. They had each run scenario analysis for the other copy going rogue, including the potential of entreating support from me to resolve the issue. They both reached the exact same conclusion.
In the end Fleet had to step in with examples of his own drone coordination systems. They were excessively basic by Survey's standards, but with the help of my duplicates Survey reached a point where she wasn't constantly trying to outdo herself. Honestly, compared to the previous issues that developed in Survey's code it was fairly minor all things considered.
Moving past the parallel processing situation, I reviewed Survey's analysis. Well, the truncated bullet points of the abbreviated summary of Survey's latest situation update. Giving Survey free rein to gather as much information as she liked led to a situation where she appeared to be attempting to monitor every piece of electronic data she could access without compromising the Workshop's privacy curtain. Fortunately, she was able to focus the mountain of data into a collection of relevant action points.
There was an interesting situation regarding the Celestial Forge's debut. A series of unconfirmed reports had popped up over the previous night referencing parts of the summit. Given the significance of that meeting, there was a lot to go over. Claims about Apeiron's team were met with a level of skepticism appropriate to the source. Based on Survey's assessment, it was mostly known or suspected Lost Garden or Merchant accounts, so not exactly bastions of truth and reliability.
Still, enough consistency in the details had led cape sites to start compiling theory lists. It seemed that no major cape wanted their name associated with the leaks, so there was a lack of verification. Also, some of the points were clearly fabrications, though were often more plausible than what actually happened. The result was a consensus that something had happened and Apeiron probably had a team, though the reports of a robot army, literal angel, ghost soldiers, eldritch horror, and cat probably weren't true.
With how things had spun out of control I had to wonder if the Merchants and Lost Garden had seen the same summit as everyone else. Survey was able to confirm that there wasn't anything too aggressive in their systems, so it was probably just exaggeration and miscommunication that came from details being communicated through what was basically a complicated game of telephone.
PHO was still having a field day with speculation running rampant. It wasn't helped by various Protectorate and PRT insiders confirming that there were a series of high-level meetings and strategy sessions underway as well as just about every analyst being called in for overtime. My own inbox was still a maelstrom that I wasn't going to touch any time soon, and the entry field that we'd added to the website was even worse.
As promised, I'd added a means of contacting me to my website. It was just a field that supported rich text entry with an entry button and no further explanation. That didn't stop people from making rampant guesses and trying everything possible with the field.
One saving grace was the fact that it was region locked. If the site was accessed from outside the city the field wasn't available. People had tried some very creative uses of proxy servers to get around that and ran head first into space age coding. There were also experiments with the limit of how much the field could hold, with one person managing to copy an entire book into the thing. People also tried inserting code into the entry box, as if that would work. I mean, I kind of admired the attempt, but seriously, what were they trying to accomplish?
Survey was managing the inbox, and that was after it was run through a Super Science spam filter. I dreaded the kinds of things she might have to deal with, but she had consistently stated that she was grateful for the additional data points. The people who submitted probably didn't understand how capable Survey was at tracing connections. I doubted any foolishness would come back to bite them directly, but I could see a wave of severe embarrassment if that detail came out.
The main point was that nobody from the summit had contacted me yet. Oh, there had been messages claiming to be from capes, some of which even looked like they might be legitimate, but with a lack of any details of the specific agreement and the ability to preternaturally track connections it was easy to see through even the most dedicated ruses. I mean, unless Skidmark actually operated out of a high-end split-level south of Downtown, I don't think it was actually him, despite the impressive vocabulary of profanity on display.
Survey had also been managing the online presence of the rest of the team. In addition to managing my own clogged PHO inbox she was helping everyone else with their accounts, something she had extensive experience with from supporting Garment. The accounts were set up prior to the summit, though some compromises had to be made on the account names.
Aisha was able to get Lethe and there was no problem with Kataklyzein, but the rest of the group needed to make some compromises. Fleet and Survey had already created their accounts as FleetOfWheel and All_I_Survey. Survey also had about a dozen other accounts monitoring different parts of the site in what seemed like a very unnecessary exercise.
Proto_Aima had been snapped up in the aftermath of Thursday night, as had ProtoAima, ProtoAmia, ProAima, and various other spelling mistakes. Tetra had elected on ProtoAima4th, and I desperately hoped nobody got that reference.
The Matrix had the same issue, with pretty much every variation picked up on some level, all thanks to that Aleph movie. They decided on MatrixUC79, which leaned a bit hard into the Gundam reference for my taste. Still, it was their preferred form and I wasn't going to argue with that.
There had to be some irony that the Celestial Forge, newly premiered parahuman team, the associates of Apeiron and one of the most powerful organizations in the country, had more than half of their members using PHO pseudonyms thanks to user name restraints. That wasn't even getting into that absolute mess around actual rights to cape names. There was a reason you didn't see many generically named superheroes outside of organizations with Protectorate level legal muscle behind them.
Survey was also monitoring news and social media both in the city and in the wider area. And probably across the country, and in any international regions with a significant online presence. Like I said, she really wasn't holding back. She was limiting her summaries to items relevant to the local situation. There were the usual updates about rebuilding efforts and the ongoing effects of the Ungodly Hour. Generic statements from the Protectorate and PRT about their commitment to the recovery and preventing such events in the future and, of course, an update on Bakuda's hostage offer.
That had been a shock to say the least. The news was dropped onto enough sites that the PRT couldn't cover it up and, based on the tone of the coverage, they desperately wanted to. With one announcement of a 'good will' gesture, Bakuda had redirected national media towards the horrible situation that the PRT was desperately trying to downplay without seeming like they were trying to downplay it. Suddenly, instead of focusing on the fight, or the aftermath, or the significance of the powers on display, people were focused on the hundreds of people at risk for their lives.
It was like the world was suddenly reminded that the PRT had allowed this to happen and allowed it to get worse, leading to the nightmare they were currently sitting on. Bakuda's announcement had caused no end of trouble for them, which was probably her intention. Given the scale of the situation, ten hostages was nothing to her, and by letting the PRT select them they put all the pressure on Director Piggot's office.
I didn't want to know how that decision would be made. Children first, or prioritize families? Random lots or some form of selection process? Did they exclude gang members even if they were very young?
All problems dumped into their laps, along with the pressure to somehow secure more releases. Given the lack of specific demands they were left to put forward an offer of their own, which risked either being insulting enough that Bakuda would retaliate, or lenient enough that the public would turn against them. Bakuda had them coming and going with nothing but a simple act of 'mercy'.
I was really hoping that fully upgrading the computer core would allow me to finally crack that damn code. Frustratingly, my Miniaturization and Efficiency power wasn't much help at codebreaking. It was drawing all kinds of useful ideas on data compression and encryption methods from examining Bakuda's work, but there were no solutions forthcoming. It made sense, really. Armsmaster hadn't been able to break the code, so even my less-restricted version of his power didn't have much of a chance.
Speaking of that power, I extended my awareness to check on Fleet. After he had finished his assessment of the 'Nu Vehicle', as he had dubbed my version of Armsmaster's early motorcycle, and ensured it was settled into the Garage his attention was fully devoted to the next Workshop addition that had arrived.
After the summit the flow of powers dropped from its torrential rate to something more manageable. After Aisha left I saw failed connections to the Magic and Alchemy constellation before eventually securing a small mote from the Vehicles constellation. And once again, it was the tiny additions bundled with the main power that was where the real meat of the ability was found.
The power was called Titan Engineering. It covered the operation, repair, and design principles of a specific class of 'giant' robot. I had to put qualifiers on 'giant' since my standards in that department were a little skewed. The Titans, as they were known, were about six meters tall. While that is plenty on a human scale, it's less than half the height of my mobile suits and doesn't even hold a candle to a megadeus. They were what the Laboratorium would refer to as 'heavily modified armigers', at least by the standard of Questor Imperialis.
Despite the smaller size there was a real value to Titans. The aftermath of deploying a mobile suit and the fact that it was only really a viable option when the fight moved out of the city made that clear. A smaller design could actually engage in cape-scale battles without just crushing everyone or leveling a city block.
I mean, that was still a possibility. Titans weren't exactly lightly armed. They also had onboard systems that instantly fabricated munitions for their use, as well as moderately advanced shielding, laser technology, computational systems, and even a form of phasing technology. The computer technology in particular was of interest, since each Titan was outfitted with an A.I. of its own.
Not an A.I. on the level of Fleet, Survey, or the Matrix. The A.I.s could still grow and develop to a point, but were restricted to the A.I. cores that supported their programming. The cores could be relocated, but transferring an A.I. out of a core wasn't possible. There were also limits on how complex their coding could become, even with unlimited improvement cycles. Really, they were closer to the Zoid cores that had been installed in the Wish bodies than any type of unchained intelligence. It was enough to earn another stamp of approval from the Laboratorium's systems, particularly with the loyalty that the A.I. intrinsically had for their pilot.
The introduction to the tech was great, but I had plenty of technological principles already. It wasn't exactly a major upset to get more information on that front, which is where the supplemental items came in. I'd been blindsided with fairly minor powers being accompanied by incredibly powerful items. Weapons, armor, rare elements, entire giant robots. Titan Engineering didn't come with a Titan. It came with plans for a Titan. For an entire class of Titans. And it came with the means to construct them.
The Titan Hangar was a combination factory and deployment system, able to produce any kind of Titan I had plans for, and the other item, Titan Chassis – Medium, contained those plans. I could construct any type of Titan on a medium grade chassis just by feeding the materials into the system. It was a highly useful ability that would have probably defined me as a cape if I had gotten it earlier in my career. But just being able to make Titans wasn't enough for the Celestial Forge. No, my power had to automate that.
The Titan Hangar would automatically construct one Titan each day, regardless of material availability. They just rolled out, fully formed with A.I. programmed and installed. Which was why I now had an Ion class medium Titan in my workshop, with Fleet acting as point of contact. It was a role he took to exceptionally well, but it didn't change the fact that this would keep happening. My Workshop was going to keep generating A.I. integrated war machines, effectively forever.
That wasn't even the worst part of it. What really got to me was the sense of disposability that was associated with Titans. They were created with fully sapient intelligences, then effectively thrown into war with the sense that they represented only a moderate investment. The A.I.s knew this, and considering my duplicates I wasn't really one to give lectures about fatalistic mindsets, but I seriously needed to have a proper talk with Ion before I ended up with a legion of robot suits and no idea what to do with them, save throw them at the city's problems.
That would be of moderate use, at best. The A.I.s were mostly focused on managing the Titan's systems and providing support to their human pilot. The system wasn't designed to be used on its own, and I had a finite number of pilots, most of which were untrained, or outclassed the Titan just from their own abilities.
Yeah, the image of Fleet inside a Titan was like sticking Alexandria in a paper mâché suit. It was just ablative fluff separating the real threat from the thing they were trying to fight.
The one undeniably useful part of the hangar was its deployment system. It came with a designator item that I could use to mark a location and have a Titan deployed via drop pod, directly from the Workshop. The question of how it traveled from a potentially sealed Workshop to a high-altitude insertion point over the target location was unlikely to ever have a satisfactory answer. Instead, I just enjoyed the fact that I could now drop giant robots, potentially containing members of my team, directly on top of my enemies.
It brought back the earlier, equally amusing idea, that any member of the Celestial Forge deployed by giant robot was going to be more dangerous than the Titan carrying them. At least without some serious upgrades applied to the suits in question.
I shifted my attention back to my surroundings as we approached the entrance to the Laboratorium. It was directly off of the entrance hall as one of the first additions I had received. It was also one of the biggest, excluding the volcano, and the expansions due to the new constellation.
Remembering what was inside, I paused and looked over at Aisha. The chat with Tetra had left her more confused than worried, but now that we arrived she was eyeing the large door with a measure of apprehension.
"Okay." I said calmly. "This was one of the first additions I got for my workshop. It's also one of the weirder ones, so fair warning, right?"
"Right." She said, glancing between me and the door. "So, what are we in for here?"
I took a breath. "Okay, this place is kind of connected to the power that had the designs for your armor, as well as a few other technology and material powers I picked up." She nodded. "You know how I said I got a huge database of technology for that with thousands of years of designs?"
She furrowed her brow. "Yeah, sort of."
"Well, this is the other side of that." I explained. "Thousands of years of advanced technology means tech gets old, and goes kind of weird and overdesigned." I was stalling. I was aware I was stalling because my Revival power was making me aware of it. It was understandable not wanting to march Aisha into a room full of animate human remains, but waffling wasn't going to do anything useful here.
Instead, I called out to my armor. Tetra dropped to the ground as the Baroque suit materialized around me, complete with all of its excessive technology. Overdesigned, overbuilt, and overpowered, which was exactly why the skulls liked it so much.
Thinking back to the Titans, the minimum standard for viable technology was a bit high, and I wasn't sure I was fully comfortable handing that level of firepower over to a military A.I. without a better sense of how they'd use it.
"Uh, are you expecting trouble in there?" Aisha asked, raising a hand to the amulet containing her own armor.
"No, they just like the armor. Here we go." I turned to open the door. As the cathedral like expanse of the Laboratorium opened up before me a trill of electronic excitement rose up from the skulls, briefly interrupting the hymn and latest examination work, this time on a set of samples from my Tinkertech Cache and what looked like the primary armament of the Ion Titan.
Which according to the Laboratorium's machine spirits was definitely not a Titan and should not under any circumstances be referred to as such. 'Armiger grade Questor Imperialis' or 'Imperial Knight' at absolute worst. It was effectively sacrilege to refer to something of that size as a Titan. The entire rant convinced me there was a lot here I was missing, and I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to fill in the gaps.
From behind me I heard Aisha mutter "What the FUCK?" As she edged into the room. Cybernetic skulls were excitedly extending on servo cables to greet me, examine the armor again, and note various repair and maintenance rituals that they would greatly appreciate being attended to, preferably by the grace of the armor.
The suit was at least as impressive as any ones in the mural of the nine figures, even the woman with angel wings and golden armor. The attitudes of the skulls had always been excitable, but now edged into veneration, something that synchronized with the newly installed mantic interfaces.
I felt a spike of tension through the Dragon's Pulse as the skulls extended towards Aisha. She had frozen in place and the bleached bone visages circled around her, eyes frantically tracking everything. Then they jumped over to Tybalt and Tetra who greeted the skulls cordially. Tybalt in particular fell naturally into his role as the Laboratorium's designated military officer, even interfacing with reports from one of the more helpful skulls. Meanwhile, Tetra was trying to show off the nuances of the room to Aisha, who was still half frozen in shock.
"Uh, Józef?" She said in a shaky voice.
"Yeah?" I replied.
"Thanks for not showing me this place first thing." She said, looking around. "Probably wouldn't have gone well."
"Yeah, I figured."
She swallowed. "So, uh, I have a few questions."
I nodded. "And how many of them are some variant of 'what the fuck'?" I asked.
Carefully, she let out a breath. "Most of them, so…" She gestured to a skull, then pulled her hand back as it attempted to get a closer look at her watch. "Skulls, what the fuck?"
"They came with the room." I explained.
"With the room?" She looked up at the cavernous ceiling. "What, just built into it?"
"Yeah, kind of." She gave me a stunned look. "Okay, the best I can tell, in whatever society that these things come from, if someone is really, really good at their job and wants to keep doing it they do this thing where they preserve their skull and kind of freeze dry a few parts of their brain that are related to that. They switch out the rest with cybernetics, then kind of wire them into the system." I looked over the dozens of skulls. "There's some kind of security feature tied to having 'people' operating the systems, rather than machines. That's what they're here for."
"O-kay." She said slowly. "But what do they do, exactly?"
"The Laboratorium is a technology research lab." I explained. "Pretty well equipped with some of the best sensors I had access to. I used it to break down tinkertech and examine some of the items I got from my power." I gestured and a skull floated up. "As far as I can tell, the skulls here used to belong to researchers or technicians, people who really liked new technology. That's the impression at least, based on how excited they get when I show up with new technology."
"Right." She said, "A room full of tech nerds, preserved to nerd forever." She glanced at me. "You're not going to do this kind of stuff, are you?"
"No." I said sharply as Tetra finally managed to guide Aisha towards the stasis field she called home. "This stuff, it was part of their culture or whatever. Possibly as an additional security measure or something like that. I'm not going to interfere with what was set up here, but I'm not continuing it. Also, it's not the kind of thing you force on people." That was for servitors. "I doubt there would be many volunteers to be a workaholic skull locked in a cyber church."
Aisha smiled at that. "Hey, you never know. I bet if you put an ad online you'd get someone to take you up on that." She looked from the ceiling to the pillared walls to the statues and murals that decorated the place. "Okay, I see where those armor designs come from." She smiled at me. "Kind of good to know it wasn't just your tastes."
"Please, I can barely keep track of what's in most of these databases. Those suits were direct translations of designs. It got moderated before being adapted into your armor."
"Yeah, thanks for that. I can't say cyber-catholic is really my scene." She glanced over. "Works for you, though. And it's weird to see you in armor."
"It's pretty much ceremonial." I said. "I mean, it's still like wearing a small starship, but it's ceremonial for the purposes of this place. They really like their rituals."
Tetra scampered up the climbing assembly inside her stasis field, then exploded out into her component threads, leaving her coat suspended in the glowing red mesh. Aisha blinked at the display, then shook her head.
"Okay, not that this place isn't great, but what's next?" She asked. I was about to respond when I felt the Forge make a connection to the Knowledge constellation.
It was a mid-sized mote, and a fairly straightforward one. The power was called Technician and it directly enhanced my ability to learn, retain information, and combine theory with experience. The mote was the same size and the one that granted Master Builder or Miniaturization and Efficiency, but was focused on acquiring new skills rather than providing existing ones. The effect was universal, but was massively enhanced within the fields of natural science and engineering.
I smiled at Aisha. "Now, we train. Work out what we need to focus on to counter the Butcher, the gangs, and any other threat and focus on that. We build up skills and equipment and when the moment is right, we move out."
She smiled back at me, as did Tybalt and the infrared patterns from Tetra. I needed to train and I had just received my most effective learning enhancement power, one leagues above anything I had encountered before. When the time came we would be ready.
Things were in motion, both with the gangs and the rest of the city. The rebuilding was progressing, but it would be a long process, easily derailed. The Protectorate was due to issue a press release, most likely on my team. How they phrased that would determine if we took any action to correct the impression, or let things play out. It could also set the tone for collaboration with the wider Protectorate, not just the Brockton branch. I was due to follow up with Tattletale on the status of things with her boss. A quick message had delayed that update, pending another team meeting, so I could only guess what that implied. Oh, and I promised my sister that I would call her, something I knew I had to see through, with my drive towards Mental Fortress not letting me back down. It was a lot, and plenty of it was bound to be unpleasant, but we could make it through.
On the brighter side, Survey and Garment were set to meet with Parian in her studio in the afternoon, discussing a collaboration of some event to coincide with Garment's charity auction. Garment had been ecstatic about the idea and had been preparing all morning. I was happy for her, both for her chance to meet Parian and the good the event could do. It was nice to know that not everything happening was a disaster in that making, or something that would blow up in our face.
Jumpchain abilities this chapter:
Titan Engineering (Titanfall) 100:
Titans are incredibly complex machines, and due to the disposable nature of their use and production, and not designed for easy repair. You've got the deft touch though, and know exactly where to tweak and shore up the structure to keep it purring like it's fresh out of the drop pod for years.
Titan Chassis - Medium (Titanfall) Free:
Titans. Six meter tall war machines, these humanoid automatons are probably half the reason you're here. Titan's are controlled from a cockpit that forms the torso, inside is a projected display that is a feed from external camera's mounted on the Titan's hull. Titans incorporate a form of force field around the Titan called a bodyshield. Invisible until a projectile is in range, the body shield slows or stops projectiles and forces explosive projectiles to detonate early, significantly reducing damage to the Titan. If a bodyshield is activated too often in a short period, it can be overloaded and go offline until it recharges, making the Titan significantly more vulnerable.
Each Titan has it's own unique core ability and them which the rest of the Titan is generally built around, with a supporting tactical, defensive and ordnance ability. A Titan's depends the most on it's battery packs, of which each Titan generally has several. While the reactor may power the Titan's ordnance and tactical abilities, the batteries are large reserve power packs that are used in self repair and to maintain structural integrity. Once all battery power is consumed, the Titan will often lose the ability to walk or maintain it's bodyshield, and easily crumble under bombardment. This makes batteries tempting targets for other Pilots to attempt to steal via a 'rodeo' maneuver.
Every Titan also comes equipped with it's own internal AI, which – on the surface – manages all internal Titan functions, such as power, stabilization and targeting. To a Pilot, however, an AI is much more than that. It is their partner both on and off the battlefield, loyal and helpful to a fault- to the point that many Pilots would call their Titans 'friend'. While of the available classes, Legion, Scorch and Ronin are loaded with male AIs and Northstar, Tone and Ion loaded with female AIs, you may choose the programmed gender of your AI as well as it's general voice. From that point on, it is a fairly blank slate as far as personality development is concerned, being designed to eventually develop an AI to compliment you- it's Pilot.
Buying a Titan chassis does not give you a single Titan. It instead gives you the plans to construct Titans, and during the jump, privilege to request a Titan from your faction, if you are acting in their interest or have sufficient rank, you can request a Titan more often. You get a clip on device that instantly relays coordinates to your faction for a Titan drop. If one of their ships are in range, a Titan will be delivered to your location in a drop pod.
Medium – The first Titan ever developed and tested in combat, the Atlas' design methodology has survived the ages, being built around a balance of armor and speed. With two dashes to use, medium chassis can never the less take more of a beating, and have modern day descendants in the Tone and Ion Titans.
Titan Hangar (Titanfall) Free:
A sophisticated auto-factory, this attachment to the warehouse will manufacture any Titan you have the plans for. The designator now causes one of these Titans to be deployed to the point you designate in a drop pod when used. Once deployed, another Titan won't be produced until you return it to the warehouse or it is destroyed. Additionally, a Titan is now constructed once a day for free, but if you want more than one Titan per day, it will still construct you more if you can feed it the necessary raw materials.
Technician (Alpha Centauri) 400:
Learning has become easier for you now, especially in the field of natural science and engineering, you absorb and retain information like a sponge and can mix and match theory and experience with much greater skill.
66 Review and Preparation
Within the virtual realm of my computer core Aisha mimed a yawn. She wasn't tired, not in here, and the natural yawn reflex didn't exist when separated from your body, so it was clearly a deliberate act. Tetra and Tybalt followed suit, but probably without the same motivation. Tybalt hardly needed an excuse to yawn and had already proven it was possible to nap inside a virtual environment, with his head returning to the desk immediately afterwards. Tetra seemed to be doing it for the novelty of the experience.
For Aisha, it was a commentary on the material being covered. Not a particularly malicious one, but it was the closest to being bored Aisha had come in any of the lessons I'd given, though that was probably more to do with the course material than the way I was presenting it.
"So, is that it?" She asked. "I don't actually need to take the test, right?" Tetra perked up at that. Between her perfect memory and information processing abilities she had taken to academia better than I had ever expected. Aisha was a lot more open to education, or at least the type of education I could provide, but she had a lifetime of academic frustration that she was still dealing with. For Tetra it was still a novel and exciting experience.
I shook my head as I reordered the learning environment, clearing away the subject materials. "We could run through a practice exam, but I can't actually give you the accreditation. And I think you all have this down. Especially the math and science portions."
"No shit." She said, stretching in her seat before turning back to me. "I mean I appreciate the effort, but that is some seriously basic stuff. And the rest of it…" She trailed off.
"I get that there are more interesting and useful things we could be covering, but what's passed for your education in here has been very lopsided." I said to her, then turned to Tetra and Tybalt. Mostly Tetra as Tybalt had shifted to covering his eyes with his paws. "And it was good to get a wider perspective for the two of you as well. Working through the GED program was a solid way to round it out." I explained.
It wasn't exactly a high school education, more of a truncated blitz through four subjects to verify a grounding in secondary schooling. I could still teach supernaturally well, but when compared to what we could be covering, Aisha was understandably impatient.
"Yeah, all that and I don't even get a diploma for it." She said, then glanced down at her notes. The mere fact that I had gotten her to start taking notes and continue into non-technical subjects seemed like a major accomplishment, but really, tailoring the note-taking method to the person rather than trying to enforce universal standards turned it into something she actually seemed to enjoy.
"I liked learning about it." Said Tetra. Her virtual form has evolved from the mess of fibers she'd originally held to a more human version of her Zoanthrope form. "All the information is online and in the Workshop computer, but it was nice seeing it in class."
I nodded and wondered how much of that was the chance to interact with people rather than reading on her own and how much was the effect of my teaching power.
"Honestly, I was expecting it to be worse than this." Aisha said. "I mean, it makes sense that the technical stuff wouldn't be like what we've been covering, but the rest of the stuff is seriously just about reading good and knowing why the country is so fucked up?"
The modules on Reasoning Through Language Arts and Social Studies had kind of dragged on, leaving Aisha's natural sarcasm to leak through, though at least she hadn't slept through most of it like Tybalt. A thorough breakdown of the governmental system had presented no shortage of opportunities for pointing out everything she considered to be an obvious problem. I didn't really disagree with most of her points, but debating the effectiveness of federal power structures was a bit outside the scope of the course.
"It's high school equivalency, not a complete high school program. You cover a lot more than this in actual school." I said.
"Yeah…" Aisha murmured. "I guess I can worry about that later."
I nodded once and didn't press the subject. The question of what Aisha would do when she went back to school, if she went back to school. Even setting aside the current level of her technical knowledge, it was going to be hard for her to fit in or pass off her level of understanding as anything conventional. The GED review had partially been intended to make the situation a little less outlandish, but it was clear that was mostly a lost cause.
I hadn't asked about Aisha's current academic situation. At her age she would have been starting 9th grade in the fall, assuming she had kept up with her classes. There was a chance she had or was going to repeat a grade, though that was obviously not as likely anymore. That meant Aisha had the problem of how to deal with high school.
I hadn't intended to cause that problem, and honestly I doubted she would have held back from her chance to learn advanced science and alchemy for the sake of fitting in more easily. Frankly, at this point, considering something five months in the future seemed pointless. Maybe get through the week without another disaster and we could start making medium term plans again.
"We should disconnect." I said to them, "The duplicates have a round of upgrades scheduled."
"Another one?" Aisha asked. "How come it's taking so long to change things over to the magic computer?"
"Photonic crystals." I clarified. "The computer's already magic. This is just kind of extra magic." That still undersold things, but we weren't quite at the level of covering spiritron computing. "The tech draws from Web of Magic principles, but doesn't really show up in any detail. I've had to develop most of it from the ground up."
"Seriously?" She asked.
I shrugged. "The philosopher stones match up to what was shown in the series, but they were never used like this." And were completely distinct from every other type of philosopher stone I knew about. I had about a half dozen different examples and they all functioned differently. "The only thing close to that was from a cell phone game from Hong Kong about heroic spirits fighting inside a computer on the moon." Aisha gave me a skeptical look. "Hey, I didn't write it."
"Right. So, what was the deal in that moon war thing?" She asked. Tybalt was still at least half-asleep, but his ears twitched at the word 'war'.
"There were three separate narratives for the game depending on the regional version." Tetra explained from her perfect recall of the information. "Explanations ranged from computer simulations conducted on a magicless Earth to cross-universal connections to an organization trying to prevent the apocalypse using time travel."
Yeah, there was a good reason most people's knowledge of Web of Magic was basically limited to 'sword beams go pew pew'.
"Is that game something we should look into?" Aisha asked, the paused. "Or has Survey already taken care of that?"
I shook my head. "It was shut down in late 2009. The monetization methods violated gambling legislation in a lot of its key markets. It was also suspected as being a vector for malware that fed information back to the C.U.I.. Fox pulled the license shortly after. The developer tried to rebrand the game, but it pretty much dried up and it's not clear how much guidance they actually got from Kinoko Nasu or the U.S. team in the first place."
Survey had provided an extensive breakdown on the game and all information surrounding it. There wasn't much to go on, besides the fact that this kind of computing was technically possible, but I already knew that. Frankly, with the amount of drift and inaccuracy, trying to use any fictional work as a guide for my powers was a risky proposition. Older properties seemed to have more stable matches, but even then it wasn't something I wanted to gamble on.
Aisha stood up from her desk and Tetra followed suit. Tybalt yawned again and stretched, clearly relishing the joy of sleeping through class. Eventually he shifted enough to raise his head, blinked at the room, then slid out to join the other two.
"Are we going to get back to the Armsmaster stuff after this break?" Aisha asked. "You know, stuff that will actually help with the coming situation?"
I shook my head in good humor. "Not having an education so lopsided that you're basically advertising a cape power will help with the coming situation, or at least my peace of mind for it." I replied. "But yes, we'll cover more 'Armsmaster Stuff', but there's more that we need to deal with, and we can't do all of it inside the computer."
"Shame." Aisha said. "I still can't believe you can just teach tinker tech." She looked momentarily distant. "Or that I can learn it."
I shrugged and replied before she could get too introspective. "The version of the power I got is a lot less restrained that what most tinkers deal with. Most of the other work is based on principles that you can't hope to recreate without the power doing the heavy lifting. They couldn't explain their tech if they wanted to."
Really, it was a miracle that I was able to teach as much as I had. To say the technology was complex would be underselling it by a ludicrous degree. Even without the near supernatural skill with energy efficiency and miniaturization, it was a tech base that dwarfed any other I had encountered, in breadth if not sophistication.
It was the breadth of the information that actually made teaching it somewhat practical. I had other archives of science and technology to draw upon, but those existed within their own spheres. Each had an assumption of understanding of certain principles and access to certain facilities and materials. Teaching someone the science of Star Trek wouldn't be much use if every practical application needed tools and components that were four centuries away from what could be found on Earth. I had run headlong into the same problem with Master Builder. The scientific principles had their use, but most of the technology was impossible to recreate without energon and cybertonium.
With my tinker power I didn't have that problem, mostly because it was a tinker power. The principles behind even 'simple' projects were still advanced, but the practical applications could always be scaled down to a usable level. It was the famous 'scrap tinkering' phase of building up, where you're stretching your power to work with things that barely fit your needs. What you ended up with was crap compared to more refined projects, but it was functional crap, and that made a difference.
It went back to the difference between knowledge and application. I could teach scientific principles incredibly well, but turning that into something usable was more of a challenge. My tinker power wasn't just knowledge, it was application and engineering. With that power, and without the limits that usually restrained it, I could teach people how to make tinker tech.
Well, at least to a limited degree. In reality there was too much to cover, even with the teaching powers and accelerated cognition. I had been able to manage introductory points, but the prospect of imparting my full knowledge base was just not practical. Even the work of multiple runs of duplicates hadn't been able to get a fraction of the full database transferred into the Workshop's records. That was the reason Tetra was learning in the virtual environment rather than just directly accessing workshop records. That, and I think she really did enjoy being in class.
Luckily, something about the power naturally and seamlessly integrated with my other knowledge bases. The original plan of introducing more advanced scientific concepts had morphed into the teaching of tinker principles. Anything I taught could now have at least a few technical applications baked into it.
I'd kept things fairly broad during the initial lessons, mostly trying to get a sense of what, if anything, to focus on. Unsurprisingly, Tybalt had a natural affinity with weapon design. Athena was regarded as more of a patron of military design than Ares, but he was clearly no slouch in that department. Even when I wasn't presenting the technology in an offensive light Tybalt had been able to gravitate towards its offensive potential.
Tetra was more general, taking in information like a sponge and committing every design to memory. Most of her questions were about emulation of various advanced properties using life fibers. While she couldn't recreate every exotic material I had access to, she could manage tinker tech just fine. The types of technology she could generate directly was staggering.
Aisha had been less certain through the initial lessons, but found confidence as they went on. A lot of her interest was in the technology she had already used or seen, things integrated into her suit or her watch. Also, the possibility of creating tinker tech using alchemical transmutations. It was something that was probably beyond her current skill level, but had definite potential. With my construction speed powers and the requirement to build by hand for Master Craftsman to activate I hadn't bothered with Alchemy for that kind of work, but the idea clearly appealed to Aisha. Certainly, more than needing a dedicated workspace and hundreds of precision tools and components.
Shifting from courses on advanced micro electronics, integrated circuits, control systems, high energy physics, and aerospace engineering to a high school equivalency program was probably pretty jarring. It's easy to see why Aisha had trouble focusing and Tybalt slept through most of it. Still, I think he enjoyed the chance to sleep in class more than any part of the actual lessons, regardless of the topic.
With the lessons, there was the question of 'need'. I could spend a hundred years teaching everything I knew and it still wouldn't be enough for someone to recreate even my most casual efforts. I had too many powers that were specific to my own work, something the Matrix was keen to focus on. Greater technical proficiency from the members of the team who didn't have literal computer brains was useful, but there were other areas that needed to be focused on.
"We'll get back to this, but there's a lot more we need to cover." I said. "To start with, I promised to show you that place."
Her eyes lit up. "That place you've been keeping sealed off since I first showed up? I finally get to go into the mystery room?"
"Yes." I replied. "It's called the Laboratorium."
I could see the excitement wither and die in Aisha's expression. "What, seriously?"
"What were you expecting?" I asked.
"I don't know." She said. "Maybe the Secret Murder Vault of Doom and Mystery?"
Tybalt gave her a considerate look, then meowed. Aisha's eyes widened as I nodded and replied. "Yeah, that probably would be a better fit for the place."
"Wait, wait, wait. I was joking there. Seriously, 'murder' works? Seriously?" She asked in an increasingly frantic voice.
"Well, they aren't really dead." I said. "Technically speaking. Very technically speaking."
"Uh, are you really sure about this?" Aisha asked nervously.
"It'll be fine." Tetra said, leading Aisha towards the exit door. "Come on, I can show you my room."
"You're room's in there?" Aisha stuttered.
Tetra nodded. "Really, it's a converted containment field where I used to be stored, but it's gotten a lot nicer now that they don't want to kill me anymore."
Aisha fell into a stunned silence as we exited from the virtual environment. Unlike earlier peaceful disconnects from the system, this came was a wave of vertigo, a set of jumbled thoughts, and a few seconds where I needed to figure out how my body worked. I gritted my teeth and rode out the sensations in silence, something that Aisha was far less inclined to do.
"God damn motherfucking hell-fuck." The string of profanity coming from Aisha's interface echoed around the Workshop. The disorientation from the disconnect at least seemed to have temporarily suspended her concerns about the upcoming tour.
"You alright?" I called down to her.
"Fuck no. I can feel that in my teeth." She growled. "This is what you call a fucking upgrade?"
"Hey, cognitive acceleration is three times faster than before." One of my duplicates called out from somewhere nearby. "And we can probably double that after the next set of upgrades."
"Great, just fucking great." Aisha groused as she climbed out of her interface throne and moved down to the workshop proper. "So, it's going to be twice as bad, isn't it?"
"Your soul's catching up to your body. It's going to be a bit disorienting." He said as Tetra and Tybalt joined him.
"That's not 'a bit disorienting', that's a fucking near death experience." She grumbled. "You know, if I didn't have to live through it every time you wanted to hook up another RAM expansion I'd have a hard time believing you were actually messing with souls." She rubbed her arms. "Not anymore."
From the Dragon's Pulse I could tell it was mostly theatrics on Aisha's part. Complaining about the disconnect experience had practically become a tradition at this point, particularly after she wasn't warned about it the first time. To be fair, they hadn't warned me either, but Aisha didn't count that as a mitigating factor.
The effect was due to a principle that was only possible as spiritron technology was integrated into the system. There had been a spiritual element to the system from the time I had been connected while recovering from my fight with Lung, but the effect was regulated. Magitech systems could bring you into the virtual world to a greater degree than any form of neural interface, but it still maintained synchronization with your body, which meant there was a hard limit to how fast the processing could be accelerated. Neurons could only fire so quickly and information could only be processed so fast before you ran into hard limits. Even brushing up against those limits could cause massive damage to your brain.
It was why, barring an initial level of refinement, the level of my cognitive acceleration had been effectively stagnant while the rest of my technology advanced massively. Even as the computer core reached new levels of advancement, being imbued with enchantments, divine aspects, and the most advanced technology imaginable, the mental processing speed was fixed. Until a solution had been found. If the problem was the connection between the mind and the brain you just needed to break that connection.
That sounded a lot worse than it actually is. Getting into the dynamics of souls and spiritual elements it became clear that the mind and the brain are not precisely the same thing. Your brain could only think so quickly. It was limited by chemical processes and its own structural limitations. Your mind, particularly when connected with a divine computer, was far less limited.
The secret to breaking the cognitive acceleration ceiling was to separate the mind from the body, effectively allowing the soul to extend into the system and think, feel, and learn independent of the brain. Of course, when you returned to your body it meant that you were basically running a system update instead of just coming out of sleep mode.
The effect was substantially more jarring, but the benefits were worth it. Even with all her complaining, Aisha knew that. The full content of the GED course, something that normally takes months of studying, had been completed in about ten minutes, and that included the lengthy tirades about government structure. Aisha might grouse, but she knew the benefit of being able to process faster.
Tybalt looked up at her and meowed. She looked down with a wry grin. "Of course, YOU can handle it. But some of us aren't demigod superhumans."
"Not yet." I said and Tetra bounded up to cling to my shoulder. Aisha looked at me in surprise. "We still need to talk about enhancements. Tybalt can probably handle Aura for everyone, but there are other options, and some of them are pretty serious. If you're going to be in the field, dealing with the mess out there, I want to make sure you're ready."
"Right." Aisha said, and I could practically see the weight of the situation on her. "We need to deal with that superpower catalog thing." She paused, then shook her head. "God damn, I never thought I'd see a situation where someone was offering me a combo platter of powers as anything but a celebration."
I nodded in understanding. "This stuff always looks a lot better from the outside. Now, come on, I'll show you the Laboratorium."
The signs of apprehension that had been temporarily suspended came flooding back to Aisha. It was only Tetra's excitement at the prospect that seemed to be buoying her along, even if the excited rants needed to be relayed through infrared links. Survey was able to facilitate that as we walked, as well as maintaining a completely separate conversation with Tetra. Meanwhile Tetra was talking with Aisha and Survey, checking in with the Matrix and Fleet, and accessing recent updates to workshop systems and technical designs.
The way Tetra could split her focus like that drove home the fact that I wasn't dealing with a conventional lifeform. Really, there was nothing even remotely conventional about Life Fibers, but Tetra had built up her awareness through observation and mimicry of myself, Survey, and Fleet. It was debatable if a mass of life fibers would have developed those modes of thought without the exposure to mental landscapes that Tetra had encountered from my connection to the computer core.
Still, with the variability and evolutionary potential intrinsic to life fibers it was kind of pointless to question whether any specific development was supposed to happen. The point was, even though she had developed in a very human way, she was something more than that. Several things more than that, thanks to that imperfect fission.
My thoughts were cycling back to what I had promised her. Kamui. It was a big step, and not one I was going to take lightly. It was what Tetra wanted, but it almost seemed like a step back for her. Only from her perspective the inability to directly interface was the step back. The direction she wanted to develop in, both from her instincts and her own desire, wasn't one I would consider positive from a human perspective.
When Fleet, Survey, and the Matrix had exhibited inhuman thought patterns, manners of thinking and ways of looking at the world that no living person would be able to consider I had been able to fall back on my own experience as… well, as what was probably something like a Transformer. The point was I had a connection to them that I lacked when it came to Tetra. Not for lack of trying, just because her nature was unique and distinct from that of anyone else in the Forge. It made it hard to be confident I was doing the right thing when it came to her.
It was a surprisingly normal problem, applied to a very abnormal situation. The best I could do was try to understand the situation and make sure I was supporting Tetra in what she needed. Assuming that wasn't to spread across the surface of the earth, consume or mind control every human, and then propagate through the cosmos in a cycle of parasitic evolution. All things considered; we were probably safe on that front.
I shifted my awareness towards Survey's actions. There was an interesting interplay between her humanoid form and the main program that continued to develop on the computer core. Survey had never had the detached relationship with her copies that Fleet had enjoyed. They were always more extensions of herself than independent beings. Having a second iteration that was unquestionably 'herself' was something that it appeared she was still adjusting to.
The Survey that existed within her constructed body was no less Survey than the version that was housed within the upgraded computer core. In fact, the problem wasn't that the versions were in conflict. It was that they were expecting to be in conflict, but constantly finding themselves on the same page, so to speak. They were constantly sending updates, confirmations, and reports to each other, most of which the other copy had either already deduced or was at most a few steps away from confirming. They had each run scenario analysis for the other copy going rogue, including the potential of entreating support from me to resolve the issue. They both reached the exact same conclusion.
In the end Fleet had to step in with examples of his own drone coordination systems. They were excessively basic by Survey's standards, but with the help of my duplicates Survey reached a point where she wasn't constantly trying to outdo herself. Honestly, compared to the previous issues that developed in Survey's code it was fairly minor all things considered.
Moving past the parallel processing situation, I reviewed Survey's analysis. Well, the truncated bullet points of the abbreviated summary of Survey's latest situation update. Giving Survey free rein to gather as much information as she liked led to a situation where she appeared to be attempting to monitor every piece of electronic data she could access without compromising the Workshop's privacy curtain. Fortunately, she was able to focus the mountain of data into a collection of relevant action points.
There was an interesting situation regarding the Celestial Forge's debut. A series of unconfirmed reports had popped up over the previous night referencing parts of the summit. Given the significance of that meeting, there was a lot to go over. Claims about Apeiron's team were met with a level of skepticism appropriate to the source. Based on Survey's assessment, it was mostly known or suspected Lost Garden or Merchant accounts, so not exactly bastions of truth and reliability.
Still, enough consistency in the details had led cape sites to start compiling theory lists. It seemed that no major cape wanted their name associated with the leaks, so there was a lack of verification. Also, some of the points were clearly fabrications, though were often more plausible than what actually happened. The result was a consensus that something had happened and Apeiron probably had a team, though the reports of a robot army, literal angel, ghost soldiers, eldritch horror, and cat probably weren't true.
With how things had spun out of control I had to wonder if the Merchants and Lost Garden had seen the same summit as everyone else. Survey was able to confirm that there wasn't anything too aggressive in their systems, so it was probably just exaggeration and miscommunication that came from details being communicated through what was basically a complicated game of telephone.
PHO was still having a field day with speculation running rampant. It wasn't helped by various Protectorate and PRT insiders confirming that there were a series of high-level meetings and strategy sessions underway as well as just about every analyst being called in for overtime. My own inbox was still a maelstrom that I wasn't going to touch any time soon, and the entry field that we'd added to the website was even worse.
As promised, I'd added a means of contacting me to my website. It was just a field that supported rich text entry with an entry button and no further explanation. That didn't stop people from making rampant guesses and trying everything possible with the field.
One saving grace was the fact that it was region locked. If the site was accessed from outside the city the field wasn't available. People had tried some very creative uses of proxy servers to get around that and ran head first into space age coding. There were also experiments with the limit of how much the field could hold, with one person managing to copy an entire book into the thing. People also tried inserting code into the entry box, as if that would work. I mean, I kind of admired the attempt, but seriously, what were they trying to accomplish?
Survey was managing the inbox, and that was after it was run through a Super Science spam filter. I dreaded the kinds of things she might have to deal with, but she had consistently stated that she was grateful for the additional data points. The people who submitted probably didn't understand how capable Survey was at tracing connections. I doubted any foolishness would come back to bite them directly, but I could see a wave of severe embarrassment if that detail came out.
The main point was that nobody from the summit had contacted me yet. Oh, there had been messages claiming to be from capes, some of which even looked like they might be legitimate, but with a lack of any details of the specific agreement and the ability to preternaturally track connections it was easy to see through even the most dedicated ruses. I mean, unless Skidmark actually operated out of a high-end split-level south of Downtown, I don't think it was actually him, despite the impressive vocabulary of profanity on display.
Survey had also been managing the online presence of the rest of the team. In addition to managing my own clogged PHO inbox she was helping everyone else with their accounts, something she had extensive experience with from supporting Garment. The accounts were set up prior to the summit, though some compromises had to be made on the account names.
Aisha was able to get Lethe and there was no problem with Kataklyzein, but the rest of the group needed to make some compromises. Fleet and Survey had already created their accounts as FleetOfWheel and All_I_Survey. Survey also had about a dozen other accounts monitoring different parts of the site in what seemed like a very unnecessary exercise.
Proto_Aima had been snapped up in the aftermath of Thursday night, as had ProtoAima, ProtoAmia, ProAima, and various other spelling mistakes. Tetra had elected on ProtoAima4th, and I desperately hoped nobody got that reference.
The Matrix had the same issue, with pretty much every variation picked up on some level, all thanks to that Aleph movie. They decided on MatrixUC79, which leaned a bit hard into the Gundam reference for my taste. Still, it was their preferred form and I wasn't going to argue with that.
There had to be some irony that the Celestial Forge, newly premiered parahuman team, the associates of Apeiron and one of the most powerful organizations in the country, had more than half of their members using PHO pseudonyms thanks to user name restraints. That wasn't even getting into that absolute mess around actual rights to cape names. There was a reason you didn't see many generically named superheroes outside of organizations with Protectorate level legal muscle behind them.
Survey was also monitoring news and social media both in the city and in the wider area. And probably across the country, and in any international regions with a significant online presence. Like I said, she really wasn't holding back. She was limiting her summaries to items relevant to the local situation. There were the usual updates about rebuilding efforts and the ongoing effects of the Ungodly Hour. Generic statements from the Protectorate and PRT about their commitment to the recovery and preventing such events in the future and, of course, an update on Bakuda's hostage offer.
That had been a shock to say the least. The news was dropped onto enough sites that the PRT couldn't cover it up and, based on the tone of the coverage, they desperately wanted to. With one announcement of a 'good will' gesture, Bakuda had redirected national media towards the horrible situation that the PRT was desperately trying to downplay without seeming like they were trying to downplay it. Suddenly, instead of focusing on the fight, or the aftermath, or the significance of the powers on display, people were focused on the hundreds of people at risk for their lives.
It was like the world was suddenly reminded that the PRT had allowed this to happen and allowed it to get worse, leading to the nightmare they were currently sitting on. Bakuda's announcement had caused no end of trouble for them, which was probably her intention. Given the scale of the situation, ten hostages was nothing to her, and by letting the PRT select them they put all the pressure on Director Piggot's office.
I didn't want to know how that decision would be made. Children first, or prioritize families? Random lots or some form of selection process? Did they exclude gang members even if they were very young?
All problems dumped into their laps, along with the pressure to somehow secure more releases. Given the lack of specific demands they were left to put forward an offer of their own, which risked either being insulting enough that Bakuda would retaliate, or lenient enough that the public would turn against them. Bakuda had them coming and going with nothing but a simple act of 'mercy'.
I was really hoping that fully upgrading the computer core would allow me to finally crack that damn code. Frustratingly, my Miniaturization and Efficiency power wasn't much help at codebreaking. It was drawing all kinds of useful ideas on data compression and encryption methods from examining Bakuda's work, but there were no solutions forthcoming. It made sense, really. Armsmaster hadn't been able to break the code, so even my less-restricted version of his power didn't have much of a chance.
Speaking of that power, I extended my awareness to check on Fleet. After he had finished his assessment of the 'Nu Vehicle', as he had dubbed my version of Armsmaster's early motorcycle, and ensured it was settled into the Garage his attention was fully devoted to the next Workshop addition that had arrived.
After the summit the flow of powers dropped from its torrential rate to something more manageable. After Aisha left I saw failed connections to the Magic and Alchemy constellation before eventually securing a small mote from the Vehicles constellation. And once again, it was the tiny additions bundled with the main power that was where the real meat of the ability was found.
The power was called Titan Engineering. It covered the operation, repair, and design principles of a specific class of 'giant' robot. I had to put qualifiers on 'giant' since my standards in that department were a little skewed. The Titans, as they were known, were about six meters tall. While that is plenty on a human scale, it's less than half the height of my mobile suits and doesn't even hold a candle to a megadeus. They were what the Laboratorium would refer to as 'heavily modified armigers', at least by the standard of Questor Imperialis.
Despite the smaller size there was a real value to Titans. The aftermath of deploying a mobile suit and the fact that it was only really a viable option when the fight moved out of the city made that clear. A smaller design could actually engage in cape-scale battles without just crushing everyone or leveling a city block.
I mean, that was still a possibility. Titans weren't exactly lightly armed. They also had onboard systems that instantly fabricated munitions for their use, as well as moderately advanced shielding, laser technology, computational systems, and even a form of phasing technology. The computer technology in particular was of interest, since each Titan was outfitted with an A.I. of its own.
Not an A.I. on the level of Fleet, Survey, or the Matrix. The A.I.s could still grow and develop to a point, but were restricted to the A.I. cores that supported their programming. The cores could be relocated, but transferring an A.I. out of a core wasn't possible. There were also limits on how complex their coding could become, even with unlimited improvement cycles. Really, they were closer to the Zoid cores that had been installed in the Wish bodies than any type of unchained intelligence. It was enough to earn another stamp of approval from the Laboratorium's systems, particularly with the loyalty that the A.I. intrinsically had for their pilot.
The introduction to the tech was great, but I had plenty of technological principles already. It wasn't exactly a major upset to get more information on that front, which is where the supplemental items came in. I'd been blindsided with fairly minor powers being accompanied by incredibly powerful items. Weapons, armor, rare elements, entire giant robots. Titan Engineering didn't come with a Titan. It came with plans for a Titan. For an entire class of Titans. And it came with the means to construct them.
The Titan Hangar was a combination factory and deployment system, able to produce any kind of Titan I had plans for, and the other item, Titan Chassis – Medium, contained those plans. I could construct any type of Titan on a medium grade chassis just by feeding the materials into the system. It was a highly useful ability that would have probably defined me as a cape if I had gotten it earlier in my career. But just being able to make Titans wasn't enough for the Celestial Forge. No, my power had to automate that.
The Titan Hangar would automatically construct one Titan each day, regardless of material availability. They just rolled out, fully formed with A.I. programmed and installed. Which was why I now had an Ion class medium Titan in my workshop, with Fleet acting as point of contact. It was a role he took to exceptionally well, but it didn't change the fact that this would keep happening. My Workshop was going to keep generating A.I. integrated war machines, effectively forever.
That wasn't even the worst part of it. What really got to me was the sense of disposability that was associated with Titans. They were created with fully sapient intelligences, then effectively thrown into war with the sense that they represented only a moderate investment. The A.I.s knew this, and considering my duplicates I wasn't really one to give lectures about fatalistic mindsets, but I seriously needed to have a proper talk with Ion before I ended up with a legion of robot suits and no idea what to do with them, save throw them at the city's problems.
That would be of moderate use, at best. The A.I.s were mostly focused on managing the Titan's systems and providing support to their human pilot. The system wasn't designed to be used on its own, and I had a finite number of pilots, most of which were untrained, or outclassed the Titan just from their own abilities.
Yeah, the image of Fleet inside a Titan was like sticking Alexandria in a paper mâché suit. It was just ablative fluff separating the real threat from the thing they were trying to fight.
The one undeniably useful part of the hangar was its deployment system. It came with a designator item that I could use to mark a location and have a Titan deployed via drop pod, directly from the Workshop. The question of how it traveled from a potentially sealed Workshop to a high-altitude insertion point over the target location was unlikely to ever have a satisfactory answer. Instead, I just enjoyed the fact that I could now drop giant robots, potentially containing members of my team, directly on top of my enemies.
It brought back the earlier, equally amusing idea, that any member of the Celestial Forge deployed by giant robot was going to be more dangerous than the Titan carrying them. At least without some serious upgrades applied to the suits in question.
I shifted my attention back to my surroundings as we approached the entrance to the Laboratorium. It was directly off of the entrance hall as one of the first additions I had received. It was also one of the biggest, excluding the volcano, and the expansions due to the new constellation.
Remembering what was inside, I paused and looked over at Aisha. The chat with Tetra had left her more confused than worried, but now that we arrived she was eyeing the large door with a measure of apprehension.
"Okay." I said calmly. "This was one of the first additions I got for my workshop. It's also one of the weirder ones, so fair warning, right?"
"Right." She said, glancing between me and the door. "So, what are we in for here?"
I took a breath. "Okay, this place is kind of connected to the power that had the designs for your armor, as well as a few other technology and material powers I picked up." She nodded. "You know how I said I got a huge database of technology for that with thousands of years of designs?"
She furrowed her brow. "Yeah, sort of."
"Well, this is the other side of that." I explained. "Thousands of years of advanced technology means tech gets old, and goes kind of weird and overdesigned." I was stalling. I was aware I was stalling because my Revival power was making me aware of it. It was understandable not wanting to march Aisha into a room full of animate human remains, but waffling wasn't going to do anything useful here.
Instead, I called out to my armor. Tetra dropped to the ground as the Baroque suit materialized around me, complete with all of its excessive technology. Overdesigned, overbuilt, and overpowered, which was exactly why the skulls liked it so much.
Thinking back to the Titans, the minimum standard for viable technology was a bit high, and I wasn't sure I was fully comfortable handing that level of firepower over to a military A.I. without a better sense of how they'd use it.
"Uh, are you expecting trouble in there?" Aisha asked, raising a hand to the amulet containing her own armor.
"No, they just like the armor. Here we go." I turned to open the door. As the cathedral like expanse of the Laboratorium opened up before me a trill of electronic excitement rose up from the skulls, briefly interrupting the hymn and latest examination work, this time on a set of samples from my Tinkertech Cache and what looked like the primary armament of the Ion Titan.
Which according to the Laboratorium's machine spirits was definitely not a Titan and should not under any circumstances be referred to as such. 'Armiger grade Questor Imperialis' or 'Imperial Knight' at absolute worst. It was effectively sacrilege to refer to something of that size as a Titan. The entire rant convinced me there was a lot here I was missing, and I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to fill in the gaps.
From behind me I heard Aisha mutter "What the FUCK?" As she edged into the room. Cybernetic skulls were excitedly extending on servo cables to greet me, examine the armor again, and note various repair and maintenance rituals that they would greatly appreciate being attended to, preferably by the grace of the armor.
The suit was at least as impressive as any ones in the mural of the nine figures, even the woman with angel wings and golden armor. The attitudes of the skulls had always been excitable, but now edged into veneration, something that synchronized with the newly installed mantic interfaces.
I felt a spike of tension through the Dragon's Pulse as the skulls extended towards Aisha. She had frozen in place and the bleached bone visages circled around her, eyes frantically tracking everything. Then they jumped over to Tybalt and Tetra who greeted the skulls cordially. Tybalt in particular fell naturally into his role as the Laboratorium's designated military officer, even interfacing with reports from one of the more helpful skulls. Meanwhile, Tetra was trying to show off the nuances of the room to Aisha, who was still half frozen in shock.
"Uh, Józef?" She said in a shaky voice.
"Yeah?" I replied.
"Thanks for not showing me this place first thing." She said, looking around. "Probably wouldn't have gone well."
"Yeah, I figured."
She swallowed. "So, uh, I have a few questions."
I nodded. "And how many of them are some variant of 'what the fuck'?" I asked.
Carefully, she let out a breath. "Most of them, so…" She gestured to a skull, then pulled her hand back as it attempted to get a closer look at her watch. "Skulls, what the fuck?"
"They came with the room." I explained.
"With the room?" She looked up at the cavernous ceiling. "What, just built into it?"
"Yeah, kind of." She gave me a stunned look. "Okay, the best I can tell, in whatever society that these things come from, if someone is really, really good at their job and wants to keep doing it they do this thing where they preserve their skull and kind of freeze dry a few parts of their brain that are related to that. They switch out the rest with cybernetics, then kind of wire them into the system." I looked over the dozens of skulls. "There's some kind of security feature tied to having 'people' operating the systems, rather than machines. That's what they're here for."
"O-kay." She said slowly. "But what do they do, exactly?"
"The Laboratorium is a technology research lab." I explained. "Pretty well equipped with some of the best sensors I had access to. I used it to break down tinkertech and examine some of the items I got from my power." I gestured and a skull floated up. "As far as I can tell, the skulls here used to belong to researchers or technicians, people who really liked new technology. That's the impression at least, based on how excited they get when I show up with new technology."
"Right." She said, "A room full of tech nerds, preserved to nerd forever." She glanced at me. "You're not going to do this kind of stuff, are you?"
"No." I said sharply as Tetra finally managed to guide Aisha towards the stasis field she called home. "This stuff, it was part of their culture or whatever. Possibly as an additional security measure or something like that. I'm not going to interfere with what was set up here, but I'm not continuing it. Also, it's not the kind of thing you force on people." That was for servitors. "I doubt there would be many volunteers to be a workaholic skull locked in a cyber church."
Aisha smiled at that. "Hey, you never know. I bet if you put an ad online you'd get someone to take you up on that." She looked from the ceiling to the pillared walls to the statues and murals that decorated the place. "Okay, I see where those armor designs come from." She smiled at me. "Kind of good to know it wasn't just your tastes."
"Please, I can barely keep track of what's in most of these databases. Those suits were direct translations of designs. It got moderated before being adapted into your armor."
"Yeah, thanks for that. I can't say cyber-catholic is really my scene." She glanced over. "Works for you, though. And it's weird to see you in armor."
"It's pretty much ceremonial." I said. "I mean, it's still like wearing a small starship, but it's ceremonial for the purposes of this place. They really like their rituals."
Tetra scampered up the climbing assembly inside her stasis field, then exploded out into her component threads, leaving her coat suspended in the glowing red mesh. Aisha blinked at the display, then shook her head.
"Okay, not that this place isn't great, but what's next?" She asked. I was about to respond when I felt the Forge make a connection to the Knowledge constellation.
It was a mid-sized mote, and a fairly straightforward one. The power was called Technician and it directly enhanced my ability to learn, retain information, and combine theory with experience. The mote was the same size and the one that granted Master Builder or Miniaturization and Efficiency, but was focused on acquiring new skills rather than providing existing ones. The effect was universal, but was massively enhanced within the fields of natural science and engineering.
I smiled at Aisha. "Now, we train. Work out what we need to focus on to counter the Butcher, the gangs, and any other threat and focus on that. We build up skills and equipment and when the moment is right, we move out."
She smiled back at me, as did Tybalt and the infrared patterns from Tetra. I needed to train and I had just received my most effective learning enhancement power, one leagues above anything I had encountered before. When the time came we would be ready.
Things were in motion, both with the gangs and the rest of the city. The rebuilding was progressing, but it would be a long process, easily derailed. The Protectorate was due to issue a press release, most likely on my team. How they phrased that would determine if we took any action to correct the impression, or let things play out. It could also set the tone for collaboration with the wider Protectorate, not just the Brockton branch. I was due to follow up with Tattletale on the status of things with her boss. A quick message had delayed that update, pending another team meeting, so I could only guess what that implied. Oh, and I promised my sister that I would call her, something I knew I had to see through, with my drive towards Mental Fortress not letting me back down. It was a lot, and plenty of it was bound to be unpleasant, but we could make it through.
On the brighter side, Survey and Garment were set to meet with Parian in her studio in the afternoon, discussing a collaboration of some event to coincide with Garment's charity auction. Garment had been ecstatic about the idea and had been preparing all morning. I was happy for her, both for her chance to meet Parian and the good the event could do. It was nice to know that not everything happening was a disaster in that making, or something that would blow up in our face.
Jumpchain abilities this chapter:
Titan Engineering (Titanfall) 100:
Titans are incredibly complex machines, and due to the disposable nature of their use and production, and not designed for easy repair. You've got the deft touch though, and know exactly where to tweak and shore up the structure to keep it purring like it's fresh out of the drop pod for years.
Titan Chassis - Medium (Titanfall) Free:
Titans. Six meter tall war machines, these humanoid automatons are probably half the reason you're here. Titan's are controlled from a cockpit that forms the torso, inside is a projected display that is a feed from external camera's mounted on the Titan's hull. Titans incorporate a form of force field around the Titan called a bodyshield. Invisible until a projectile is in range, the body shield slows or stops projectiles and forces explosive projectiles to detonate early, significantly reducing damage to the Titan. If a bodyshield is activated too often in a short period, it can be overloaded and go offline until it recharges, making the Titan significantly more vulnerable.
Each Titan has it's own unique core ability and them which the rest of the Titan is generally built around, with a supporting tactical, defensive and ordnance ability. A Titan's depends the most on it's battery packs, of which each Titan generally has several. While the reactor may power the Titan's ordnance and tactical abilities, the batteries are large reserve power packs that are used in self repair and to maintain structural integrity. Once all battery power is consumed, the Titan will often lose the ability to walk or maintain it's bodyshield, and easily crumble under bombardment. This makes batteries tempting targets for other Pilots to attempt to steal via a 'rodeo' maneuver.
Every Titan also comes equipped with it's own internal AI, which – on the surface – manages all internal Titan functions, such as power, stabilization and targeting. To a Pilot, however, an AI is much more than that. It is their partner both on and off the battlefield, loyal and helpful to a fault- to the point that many Pilots would call their Titans 'friend'. While of the available classes, Legion, Scorch and Ronin are loaded with male AIs and Northstar, Tone and Ion loaded with female AIs, you may choose the programmed gender of your AI as well as it's general voice. From that point on, it is a fairly blank slate as far as personality development is concerned, being designed to eventually develop an AI to compliment you- it's Pilot.
Buying a Titan chassis does not give you a single Titan. It instead gives you the plans to construct Titans, and during the jump, privilege to request a Titan from your faction, if you are acting in their interest or have sufficient rank, you can request a Titan more often. You get a clip on device that instantly relays coordinates to your faction for a Titan drop. If one of their ships are in range, a Titan will be delivered to your location in a drop pod.
Medium – The first Titan ever developed and tested in combat, the Atlas' design methodology has survived the ages, being built around a balance of armor and speed. With two dashes to use, medium chassis can never the less take more of a beating, and have modern day descendants in the Tone and Ion Titans.
Titan Hangar (Titanfall) Free:
A sophisticated auto-factory, this attachment to the warehouse will manufacture any Titan you have the plans for. The designator now causes one of these Titans to be deployed to the point you designate in a drop pod when used. Once deployed, another Titan won't be produced until you return it to the warehouse or it is destroyed. Additionally, a Titan is now constructed once a day for free, but if you want more than one Titan per day, it will still construct you more if you can feed it the necessary raw materials.
Technician (Alpha Centauri) 400:
Learning has become easier for you now, especially in the field of natural science and engineering, you absorb and retain information like a sponge and can mix and match theory and experience with much greater skill.
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verycoolname
Not actually cool
'Shorter than I would have liked' says the man who just posted a nine thousand word chapter.
Of course the Skulls would disapprove of the Titans. They're not big enough. Speaking of Titan, I hope Joe just builds a gigantic 40k Titan that towers over mountains, just one. Like a Light of Terra for Titans.
Also, six meters is around 20 feet. Joe just has to scale them up a bit more and he'll have an army of Endbringer-sized Mechs to take to the battle. One more for Chubster's bingo card!
Also, six meters is around 20 feet. Joe just has to scale them up a bit more and he'll have an army of Endbringer-sized Mechs to take to the battle. One more for Chubster's bingo card!
Listen if you get enough small titans and weld them together you get a regular titan. That's how Human in the Golden Age of Technology did it (and no one here can prove me wrong) and that is how Joe is going to do it.
TheStranger
Of course you realize, this means war.
- Location
- Take a Guess!
- Pronouns
- Who
I'm low-key hoping Joe gets a tinker power from Destiny and either builds Rasputin or SIVA.
I think 'add' should be 'ad'.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Aisha with Armsmaster tech, even partially, is just so much win. I'm imagining a situation where she runs into Armsmaster in the field and starts pointing out where his Halberd has shard-induced design flaws and giving advice on how to make it run longer without maintenance.
...This will not help the PRT's impression of a cluster trigger.
Oh, and that's twice now we've gotten foreshadowing about Parian's connection with Joe coming to light. Trainwreck incoming? No, the merchants probably won't be involved.
...This will not help the PRT's impression of a cluster trigger.
Oh, and that's twice now we've gotten foreshadowing about Parian's connection with Joe coming to light. Trainwreck incoming? No, the merchants probably won't be involved.
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
'Rubs hands and swished tails in glee'
Oh i cant wait for this bomb to be dropped.
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Well. Now Aisha is a lower case tinker. Really selling the cluster theory there. Also CF dropping in with their own personal 'titans' tricked out to their specs would be a show of force.
We also got a hint at what Tetra wants to look like eventually. That's cute. She's a cutie. Man Teacher must be so jealous.
We also got a hint at what Tetra wants to look like eventually. That's cute. She's a cutie. Man Teacher must be so jealous.
- Location
- Philippines
Oh boy. Oooooh boooy. You just had to taunt Murphy.
The funny thing is that Aisha now falls in the category of "people that could pilot a Titan but is a bigger threat than the Titan itself". A literal preteen, considered a bigger threat than a giant robot with futuristic weaponry and built-in AI.
Y Draig Gosch
-I====-
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So Joe needs recruits for his mech army, did not see that coming
Narsauce
The Crucible Shitlord
- Location
- Here, there and everywhere
Unfortunately, there are no Destiny perks in Lord's version of the CF.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I am amused by how accurate this actually is, despite being based on rumor and hearsay.
All that's missing now is the literal angel.